Podcasts by Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood
Freebies from The 1937 Flood, West Virginia's Most Eclectic String Band! The Flood, the Original Old Boy Band, has been around since the 1970s playing their own brand of mountain music, from blues and jugband to swing and traditional folk. These podcasts feature Flood Freebies, recordings captured on the fly, as it were, at the Flood's weekly jam sessions
Further podcasts by The 1937 Flood
Podcast on the topic Musik
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"Good as I Been to You (You Gonna Quit Me Blues)" from 2023-12-13T18:59:14.716557
We started doing the song in the mid-1990s, right after we heard it on a then-new Bob Dylan album. We were looking for an easy, happy little tune that we can warm up on, letting everybody just s...
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My Dear Companion from 2023-12-13T18:59:14.710261
Nominally, this is a traditional song about abandoned love, but back in the 1960s when she reworked it, the late Jean Ritchie wrote new lyrics that went well beyond that to the larger them...
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But Not for Me from 2023-11-24T06:21
It’s a kind of counter-love song — a great anthem to angst — and George Gershwin’s “But Not For Me” was ahead of its time. He and his brother Ira wrote the thing in 1930 for a popular stage musi...
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"July, You're a Woman" from 2023-11-17T06:12
Charlie played this song for Dave Peyton on the first night they jammed together at a New Year’s Eve party 50 years ago. It was the one of the best tunes in their repertoire for their earl...
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"Birth of the Blues" from 2023-11-10T06:01
We have several new tunes to bring tomorrow night for our latest gig at Sal’s Speakeasy in Ashland, Ky., including this one that the great Ray Henderson wrote almost a hundred years ...
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Hard Times from 2022-04-15T04:51:13
Last night we just barely had a quorum — about half the band had other obligations — but, as we always say around here, whenever two or three gather in its name, it is The Flood. And, as t...
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Come All Ye Fair and Tender Maidens from 2022-04-08T03:04:13
Earlier this week, when Veezy and Danny created their own thoughtful impressions of this old Appalachian tune, they were also communing with the spirit of a Floodster they never met. It was more...
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God Bless the Child from 2022-04-01T03:55:01
This tune’s still relatively new for us, but last night we found the groove. Just listen to Randy’s heartbeat of a bass line under Charlie’s vocals as we pass it off for sensuous soliloqui...
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Down in the Flood from 2022-03-25T03:00:19
This tune, which only a few years older than our band, by all rights ought to be The Flood’s theme song. The fact is, though, we’ve been doing it only about a dozen years or so, which is —...
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Carrickfergus from 2022-03-18T04:17:40
St. Patrick’s Day has always been a special time in the Floodisphere, and when it falls on our regular gathering night, well, the rehearsal turns into a bit of a céilí. Last night we broug...
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Fly Me to the Moon from 2022-03-04T02:33:54
We’ve been doing this song for a dozen years of so, but it’s always new, depending on who’s on hand to handle the solos. Last night it was Veezy and Danny’s turn to find sweet new nu...
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Black Coffee from 2022-02-18T03:56:48
What a wonderful family the Coffmans are, a young household full of musicians and artists, students and teachers. We feel so fortunate to know them through the transformative music of thei...
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I Got Mine from 2022-02-11T04:28:37
The Flood learned its version of this tune from the great Jim Kweskin’s jug band and its 1966 album for Vanguard called “Relax Your Mind.” At last night’s Flood rehearsal, we were doing ju...
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Wayfaring Stranger from 2022-02-04T02:08:10
If you were trying to make a graphic representation of a Flood rehearsal, your best model would probably be a crazy quilt. In the span of an hour or two, we go from rollicking jugband tune...
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Sitting on Top of the World from 2022-01-28T04:43:01
Ask our bass player Randy Hamilton to name his best friends on the planet and somewhere near the very top of that list will be Danny Cox. Now, we’ve been hearing ABOUT this marvelous guita...
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Lady Be Good from 2022-01-21T03:21:18
Nineteen Twenty-Four was a golden year for George Gershwin. After more than a decade on pounding the pavement of New York’s Tin Pan Alley peddling his tunes, Gershwin composed his first major wo...
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Trouble in Mind from 2022-01-14T04:31:17
New Orleans jazz pioneer Richard M. Jones wrote “Trouble in Mind” about a century ago, and singer Bertha “Chippie” Hill made it a hit with a 1926 recording that had Jones himself on piano ...
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Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out from 2022-01-07T03:05:41
We’ve always loved this great old song -- now just about a century old — but we’ll be the first to tell you that there are some very hinky thing about our beloved tune. For one thing, hand...
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Remembering Joe Dobbs' "South Wind," a 2013 Flashback from 2021-12-31T03:04:14
From almost a decade ago — in the early spring of 2013 — here’s the late Joe Dobbs fiddling the last of the many tunes he taught us over his 40 years of playing with us. Now, Joe’s tune he...
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Greensleeves (What Child Is This?) from 2021-12-24T03:58:38
On this Christmas Eve, our gift to you is a beautiful old carol. Now, in our country, we often know it as “What Child Is This?” based on a Christmas verse that was written more than a cent...
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Sister Kate / Heebie Jeebies from 2021-12-10T04:41:53
The mood of last night’s jam session was set before we even walked through the door, because our host, Doug Chaffin, had already gotten a good head start on an amble down memory lane when ...
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Dink's Tune / Loch Lomond from 2021-12-03T04:53:03
Have you ever notice that there’s magic in folk melodies, that they are both ancient and stunningly contemporary at the same time? But the magic’s more than that. Besides this wonderful ti...
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Minor Swing from 2021-11-26T05:06:34
A long time ago, sitting in his hilltop home near Ashland, Ky., Doug Chaffin started noodling around with some ideas he got from the great Django Reinhardt in his classic "Minor Swing” rec...
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Twisted Laurel from 2021-11-19T05:30:28
A good song sometimes seem like a train, with people getting on and off all along the way. And kind of like a distant train whistle, it might resonate differently with everybody who hears ...
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Sunny Side of the Street from 2021-11-12T05:12:35
One of the coolest rooms we’ve ever played in Huntington is the beautiful, historic B&O depot downtown at Heritage Station. And so we are awfully pleased that our old buddy Tyson Compt...
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Bye Bye Blues from 2021-10-29T05:55:15
Last night was not a great evening for our Veezy Coffman. No sooner had she arrived for the rehearsal at Doug Chaffin’s house near Ashland than she discovered one of the tires on her truck had b...
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My Blue Heaven from 2021-10-22T05:23:46
You wonder if songs you hear today will still be around a century from now. Well, if Walter Donaldson wondered that about the song he penned back in the 1920s, he needn’t have worried. His...
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Georgia on My Mind from 2021-10-15T03:55:52
We say it all the time — music is as much about listening as it is about playing — and here, from last night’s weekly Flood affair, is a lovely example of what we’re talking about. Now, mi...
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Happy Birthday, Veezy! from 2021-10-08T04:54:28
We were so pleased that our newest band mate, Vanessa Coffman, chose last night to spend part of a very big birthday — her 21st — with us. It’s also her first anniversary as a member of Th...
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Somebody Stole My Gal from 2021-10-01T05:14:26
One of our heroes — the great jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke — died 90 years ago this summer. His was a short but brilliant time on the planet; he was just 28 when he died, but even before...
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Harlem Nocturne from 2021-09-24T04:54:53
Our Vanessa Coffman has grown up in a very musical family. Her mom, Julianne, is a singer and today teaches music in the Cabell County schools. Her dad, Gary, also an educator, played sax in Mar...
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Ramblin' Boy from 2021-09-10T06:14:33
So much about a good evening of music depends on the chemistry of the people in the room, and last night there were some wonderful people in the room. Our dear old friend, Floodster Emerit...
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Stormy Weather from 2021-09-03T04:57:31
There are some nights when the music just can’t wait to get out, when everybody seemed to come to the room in the same groove. Last night was such a night, and I think we all knew it from th...
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Ookpik Waltz from 2021-08-27T05:10:51
More than a decade ago, Doug Chaffin taught us a beautiful, mysterious waltz called “Ookpik.” At the time, he usually played it on fiddle or mandolin, but it’s had many configurations for Th...
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St. James Infirmary from 2021-08-18T05:23:23
We started playing the wonderful Diamond Teeth Mary Blues & Arts Festival in downtown Huntington… oh, it’s been seven or eight years ago now, and we always love coming back, but lord, an...
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Down by the Salley Gardens from 2021-08-11T06:18:53
There’s nothing at all wrong with doing public shows — shoot, we in the band are such hams that we all get a charge out of puttin’ on and showin’ off on stage — but we live for the weekly jam sess...
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I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone from 2021-08-03T05:10:56
In blues parlance, the term “easy rider” is code for …oh, well, many things. Maybe a rovin’ gambler or a lover, maybe a pimp… Y’all just talk among yourselves and let your imagination gallop...
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Honeysuckle Rose from 2021-07-28T04:01:30
At a recent rehearsal, we tapped Veezy Coffman to choose the last tune of the night. Without hesitation, she called for “Honeysuckle Rose.” You know, sometimes we’re amazed at the affi...
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Lovin' You Would Be So Good for Me from 2021-07-21T03:05:52
About 20 years ago this summer, Joe Dobbs asked the boys in his band to come up with a theme song for his show, “Music from the Mountains” which by then had been a huge weekend favorite on West Vi...
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Creative Listening with Veezy Coffman from 2021-07-14T03:06:06
When she’s not playing with The Flood or working on her double-major at Marshall University, our saxophonist Veezy Coffman can often be seen and heard playing solo jazz sets at cool venues a...
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You Don't Know Me from 2021-07-07T01:27:54
Eighteen years ago this month, our late fiddler Joe Dobbs brought a young woman to a rehearsal to meet the band. The plan was to work out just a couple of tunes for her to sing with us at a ...
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Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? from 2021-06-30T05:06:57
We always love having Charlie’s cousin Kathy Castner sing a few tunes with us. Well, it never happens nearly often enough — usually only a couple of times a year, maybe once in the summer an...
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Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor from 2021-06-23T05:14:52
The great Jelly Roll Morton once told folklorist Alan Lomax that the song “Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor” was one of the earlier country blues to come rambling into the big city of New Orle...
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New Orleans from 2021-06-09T04:37:58
If you’d been around in 1932 and had your ears on, you might have thought that songwriter Hoagy Carmichael had already peaked. Oh, sure, he’d been writing for only for about eight year...
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One Red Rose from 2021-06-02T05:17:51
It’s been a little more than a year now since one of our heroes — songwriter John Prine — passed away at the start of the dreadful Covid-19 pandemic, and at last night’s Flood gathering, we ...
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The 4th Street Mess Around from 2021-05-26T02:46:16
One of Ray Charles’s first hits was “Mess Around,” released on Atlantic Records back in 1953, but actually Brother Ray was a little late to the party with that tune. Many of the ideas for th...
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Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You from 2021-05-19T04:31:16
Two of our all-time favorite musicians — Doug Chaffin and Bob Dylan — both turn 80 this year, Bob next week and Doug in August, and both are still going strong. Well, shoot, more than just g...
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I'm Beginning to See the Light from 2021-05-14T05:30:58
The collaboration of composer Duke Ellington and saxophonist Johnny Hodges is legendary among jazz enthusiasts. Hodges’s recording of tunes like “Prelude to a Kiss” and “Passion Flower” are ...
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Yellow Dog Blues from 2021-04-21T04:36:43
It’s not every song that has an historical marker devoted to it beside the highway. But then it’s not every song that has the privilege of being composed by the great W.C. Handy. It’s hard t...
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Summertime from 2021-04-07T05:11:15
George Gershwin’s 1935 composition “Summertime” is probably the most frequently covered song in all the world. Some estimate that there have been at least 25,000 recorded versions, many of t...
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I Almost Lost My Mind from 2021-03-31T05:43:39
Before rock ’n’ roll was a thing, it was rhythm and blues that was perking up the ears of a generation of young radio listeners, and tops among the early R&B songwriters was Ivory Joe Hu...
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Memphis in June from 2021-03-24T04:46:15
Back in the days when we would ride on — and occasionally even got to perform on — the good ol’ Delta Queen steamboat, it often meant a reunion with a dear friend, the boat’s band leader, th...
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Dead Cat on the Line from 2021-03-17T05:59:40
While we are regularly reminded that they nailed Socrates for corrupting the youth, we do sometimes feel obliged to enlighten the younger members of our audience as to the origins of some of...
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Golden Apples of the Sun from 2021-03-10T05:39:51
More than a century ago, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote an amazing verse called “The Song of Wandering Aengus.” In it an old man remembers a mystical experience in his youth, in w...
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Willow Weep for Me from 2021-02-24T05:37:27
It’s uncommon for a songwriter to dedicate a composition to another composer, but Ann Ronell said she had to dedicate her 1932 masterpiece to her friend and mentor George Gershwin. ““George ...
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(When She Wants Good Lovin') My Baby Comes to Me from 2021-02-17T03:18:52
Many of us grew up listening to The Coasters, the iconic 1950s band that bridged the gap between doowop and R&B, that brought humor and sass to the birth of rock ’n’ roll. “Yakety Yak” a...
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Cry Me a River from 2021-02-10T05:59:12
Here’s a song that’s been kicked around a bit, but like any good jazz ballad, but it has kicked right back. “Cry Me a River” was written by Arthur Hamilton originally for Ella Fitzgerald to ...
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Wayfaring Stranger 3.0 from 2021-02-03T04:21:59
In our world, songs — or at least, their musical arrangements — evolve. A case in point is the wonderful old 19th century gospel song called “Wayfaring Stranger.” Now, back in the 1970...
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Backwater Blues from 2021-01-27T06:13:53
After a long rehearsal, with lots of new material to work on, it’s always good to end up back on familiar ground, which for us usually means the blues. And more often than not, the blues mea...
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Blues for Toy Stores and Records Stores from 2021-01-13T03:36:52
Some songs don’t have names, just stories and moods. Here’s an example. Between the tunes at a recent rehearsal, we started reminiscing about some of the things we missed from our childhood....
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Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I) from 2021-01-06T04:42:05
Sixty years ago this October, Ray Charles released his last album for Atlantic Records called “The Genius Sings the Blues,” The album compiled a dozen tunes Brother Ray had recorded over an ...
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Black Eye Blues from 2020-12-30T02:55:12
One of the wonderful films that rolled out this month is “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the latest in Denzel Washington’s exciting ongoing project to bring the best of the late August Wilson’s ...
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Up a Lazy River from 2020-12-23T03:00:58
America has always had amazing songwriters whose works simply change the way we all talk to each other, none more so than the great Hoagy Carmichael. In his 80 years, Hoagy wrote hundreds of...
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Stray Dogs and Alley Cats from 2020-12-09T07:05:38
A few weeks before COVID came along and started slapping us all around, Paul Martin looked up at one of The Flood’s weekly rehearsals and said, “Hey, fellows, have we ever thought about doin...
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Jelly Roll Baker from 2020-12-02T06:11:40
Between the holidays and then snowy weather, we’ve not had a full band rehearsal lately, but last Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — was a warm, sunny day, and we had even further reason ...
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Dink's Song / Loch Lomond from 2020-11-25T05:53:40
The first time we played this old folk song for Vanessa Coffman, she heard what seemed to be the ghost of another tune in it. While we were singing a lament from the dark foothills of Americ...
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Jugband Song from 2020-11-18T05:12:36
Our newest Floodster, Veezy Coffman, was still busy being born about the time we were putting a version of this song on a Flood album a couple of decades ago. And, shoot, we’re not sure her ...
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Hey, Daisy from 2020-11-11T05:58:53
In these times of COVID, when we can get together for a rare rehearsal, we can’t meet in our traditional practice space at the Bowen house. Instead, masked, hand-washed and socially distance...
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Alberta, Let Your Hair Hang Low from 2020-11-04T04:58:29
We love it when fresh ears bring something so new to an old tune. Now, our newest Floodster Vanessa Coffman had never heard this old folk song until she started playing with us, but she quic...
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Ain't Misbehavin' from 2020-10-14T05:34:37
There are lots of stories about the great jazz songwriter Fats Waller. Our favorite is about the time he was kidnapped off the streets of Chicago. Now, it was 1926 and Fats was just leaving ...
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Vanessa Coffman is Our Newest Floodster from 2020-10-07T08:12:32
Our dear friend Vanessa Coffman turns 20 years old today and we’re happy to announced that going into this new decade, she is also the newest Floodster. At the end of The Flood’s rehearsal l...
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Autumn Leaves from 2020-09-30T07:58:24
Of all the tunes we do, none is more evocative than “Autumn Leaves,” Joseph Kosma’s post World War II composition that quickly became a jazz standard in America from the 1950s right up to to...
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Sittin' on Top of the World from 2020-09-23T07:27:50
Here’s a tune that we started doing back in the foggy ruins of time, inspired by the original that was recorded 90 years ago this year by some of our heroes, in this case, the great country ...
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